Show notes
As president and CEO of Bleeding Fingers Music and Extreme Music, Russell Emanuel is a trailblazing leader, innovator, and producer in the music industry. Bleeding Fingers is one of the leading producers of quality-crafted film and television scores in the world, bolstered by a unique creative association and business partnership with industry legend, Hans Zimmer, and his long-term business partner, Steve Kofsky.
Russell’s vision for Bleeding Fingers led to a thriving collaboration with David Attenborough and BBC on the music for Planet Earth II – a score that contributed to the series’ record-breaking viewership, international acclaim, and BAFTA and Emmy nominations for Bleeding Fingers’ work. This paved the way to his most recent project - producing the score for the highly-anticipated BBC One natural history landmark, Blue Planet II, which premieres later this year. Alongside his work producing the series’ orchestral score, Russell creatively produced a track for the prequel, titled “(ocean) bloom,” featuring a collaboration with Radiohead, one of the world’s most acclaimed rock bands, and Hans Zimmer.
Under Russell’s leadership, Bleeding Fingers has amassed an expert crew of over a dozen in-house composers leading to an unmatched balance of musical creativity, collaboration and efficiency. Bleeding Fingers’ music has strengthened countless projects, with their prolific and diverse output including scores featuring sweeping orchestral pieces, industrial rock and electronic sounds, Americana, and everything in between. Operating out of their twenty-studio Santa Monica facility on the same campus as Remote Control Productions, the company is producing carefully-tailored scores for some of the most acclaimed series on television. In addition to Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II, Bleeding Fingers’ musical efforts include Netflix’s Roman Empire, Amazon’s American Playboy, and Crackle’s Snatch.
Before creating Bleeding Fingers, Russell had already made a name for himself as a titan within the composing industry, thanks to the tremendous success of Extreme Music, which he co-founded in 1997. Extreme Music was conceived as a business that would provide production music for projects that did not have access their own composers, while retaining incredibly high standards of passion and quality. The company soon became famous, not only for the music it offered, but also for the notorious punk energy and marketing that Russell channeled through the company (most famously, he sent condoms to numerous industry professionals, printed with the massage “the only safe thing you will ever get from us”). Russell grew the company to such a large success that it was purchased by SonyATV in 2008 for $110 million with Emanuel still remaining as the active CEO.
Russell is not only an entrepreneur, but an experienced musician within his own right. For many years, he was a session musician, producer and manager, most notably managing The Jam and Stiff Little Fingers. He’s also collaborated with musical heavy-hitters such as George Martin, Snoop Dogg, Rodney Jerkins, and Quincy Jones, and spent an early stint of his career engineering at Abbey Road Studios.
Russell currently lives in Los Angeles. When not working, he likes to perform with his twisted pop-hit cover band "Courtesy Flush,” ride his Harley Davidson and serve as a chauffeur and entertainment officer to his wife and five children.
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